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DR. LORING'S ORATION, 



JULY 4. 1866. 



kU mi& WiamnhU ^mMUnttim. 



AN ORATION, 



DELIVERED AT NEWBŪETPOET, 



JULY 4, 1866, 



GEORGE B. LORING, 



OF SAIjEM. 



SOUTH DANVERS: 

SUTTON BUILDING. 

1866. 



.L 21 



8*«HB« 



QBks«if| 



o R A T I o N 



Fellow - CiTizENS : — We have gathered here on 
this anniversary of the Declaration of our National 
Independence, to renew our offerings, and repeat onr 
prayers, \vithin the sacred edifice erected by our fathers 
to the cause of free government, populąr intelligence, 
universal philanthropy, and public education, morals, 
and rehgion. Ninety years ago they laid the corner- 
stone. Commencing -vvith the simple declaration of 
human eąuality, they devoted their lives, their for- 
tunes, and their sacred honor to the completion of the 
great civil fabric. "They builded better than they 
knew." Battles, sieges, and privation, and bankruptcy, 
and sorrow, frost, snows and starvation brought indeed 
no terror to their hearts. Alone among the nations, a 
little band, cut off from commerce, ignorant of their 
own resources, hemmed in by a savage and untrodden 



■vvilderness, they struck for independence, knowmg that 
upon this alone can national greatness ręst, and believ- 
ing that by this alone can man, created in the image of 
his maker, discharge the divine service assigned him 
here on earth. Inspired by this faith, our Washington 
nerved his arm. Inspired by this faith, our Adams 
thundered in the forum. Inspired by this faith, the 
American armies went forth to battle, and the Ameri- 
can people endured unto the end. 

But " they builded better than they knew." Not 
they, who achieved the victories of Saratoga and 
York to wn, could measure the rich and abounding 
harvest which has fallen upon us who enjoy the 
" fruits of those victories." Not they who signed the 
Declaration of Independence, could tell the great in- 
heritance of freedom vvhich they were preparing for 
every kindred, race, and tongue on this continent. 
The orators and statesmen of 1776, glowing with a 
divine enthusiasm, and guided by a divine wisdom for 
the great occasion — calling upon " succeeding genera- 
tions " to celebrate " the great Anniversary Festival " — 
to commemorate " the day of deliverance by solemn 
acts of devotion to God Almighty " — to " solemnize it 
■vvith pomp, and parade, with games, shows, sports, 
bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of the 
continent to the other" — looking " through all the 
gloom," — filled as they \vere with confidence, and 
hope and faith — could see but a feeble ray of that 



refulgent light which is poured upon the American 
people of this day and generation. Tell the heroes 
of Bunker Hill, how their sons fought at Gettysburg, 
and Vicksburg, Antietam, and South Mountain, and 
before the gates of Richmond ; tell the signers of the 
Declaration of Independence, how the truths whicli 
they nttered were borne on to the glorious result, 
when emancipation was proclaimed, and the bondman 
went free ; tell the founders of our Constitution, how 
that great instrument became, through tire and blood, 
the supreme law of the land, and the Union was pre- 
served ; tell the men of the Revolution, and of the 
early day s of the Constitution, how the child which they 
nurtured, has increased in stature, until in all the arts 
of war and peace, he has become supreme among the 
nations, — tell them of oiu' progress in education, and 
refinement, in the work of religious and moral instruc- 
tion, in sočiai development, and in all the sweet chari- 
ties of life ; would not this host of the illustrious dead, 
our fathers, the fathers of the Republic, behold with 
amazement the fruit of theu- labors ? And would they 
not moreover realize the sacred obligations which ręst 
upon us, their children, as heirs of the great inheri- 
tance ? 

I need not remind you, my friends, what these obli- 
gations are. You are associated for the pm-pose of 
carrying on one of the great reforms of the day — an 
earnest, sincere, devoted efFort to drive from our land 



that dark-winged messenger of gloom, whose sliadow 
falls upon almost every family, and darkens all our 
sočiai heavens. The virtue which you advocate, is en- 
titled to the attendance of all other virtues. The cause 
which you defend, lies at the fouDdation of all true pro 
gress. There may be wealth and power ; there niay be 
institutions of learning and religion ; there may be ele- 
vation in art and all refinement; there may be the 
highest sočiai organization and the profoundest politi- 
cal wisdom ; there may be civil freedom dispensed to 
all likę the rain and dew ; but they have perished, and 
may again perish, before the pitiless storm of unre- 
strained indulgence. We may not forget this in our 
pride as a people. We may not forget this in our 
arrogant self-confidence as individuals. We may not, 
as individuals or a people, despise those efforts which 
are made to remove or stay the evil. For though 
clouds and darkness may be round about us, it is the 
eternal sunlight which will in the end prevail, else all 
were desolation and a ruin. Knowing y our bclief then 
in human progress, understanding y our faith in all re- 
form, I bid you God speed in the special object to 
"vvhich you are devoted, and ask you to consider with 
me on this appropriate day, the obligations which ręst 
upon the American people, the business of popular 
government, and the fruits of that great victory won 
for freedom and cducation, for humanity and religion, 
for sočiai clevation and good order in our lašt great 



war. For you will agree witli me, I know, that it was 
not the suppression of the rebellion alone, not solely 
the preservation of the Union, not simply the establish- 
ment of the Fecleral authority,'not only the glory of oiir 
flag which we secured on the battle fields of freedom, 
but that glorious opportunity, never before bestowed 
upon man, of erecting a government upon equal and 
exact justice — " a government of the people, by the 
people and for. the people," " which shall not perish 
from the earth." 

You ^Yill agree with me, I am sure, that government 
is not intended for the preservation of property, or the 
perpetuation of power, or the purposes of conquest, or 
*the establishment of sočiai distinctions — for these and 
these only. It has a higher duty. So you believe who 
would make temperance its corner-stone. So thought 
Milton, Avhen he ranged himself with the reformers of 
bis time, and gavę the weight of bis inspired intellect 
not only against ship money and the star chamber, but 
for that species of freedom which is the most valuable, 
and which was then the least understood — the freedom 
of the human mind." So thought the Puritans, who in 
their early days " espoused the cause of civil liberty, 
mainly because it was the cause of religion," and brought 
to our forbidding shores those principles which no sor- 
row nor suffering could ąuench from their soiūs, and 
which have triumphed in every era of oiu* country's ad- 
vancement. So thought Hampden, when he arrayed 



8 



himself against " the vices and ignorance which an old 
t}'raniiy liad generated, with all that sobriety, that self- 
command, that perfect soundness of judgment, that per- 
fect rectitude of intention to \vhich the history of revo- 
lutions furnishes no parallel, or furnishes a parallel in 
"^^ashington aJone." So thought JefFerson, when he 
opened his sublime protest against the oppressive acts 
of the kmg, and gavę as the key note to our revolution, 
the imm'ortal truth that " all men are created eqiial." 
So thought Abraham Lincoln, when he took as a "light 
to his feet and a lamp to his path," the abstract truth of 
the great declaration, and amidst all the trials, and 
doubts, and uncertainties, and horrors of civil war, 
bowed his soul in all humility before his Maker, as 
with religious faith he dedicated his country to univer- 
sal freedom. So think the true and earnest reformers 
of our day. And so sings the silver tongue of him, 
whose song has been ever for freedom, whose earnest 
devotion has made the name of Whittier dearer to us 
than that of statesman or conqueror, and whose footfall 
has made this spot more sacred. 

Every government, likę every individual, has its se- 
vere service to perform, it is true, however high may 
be its aim, and however grand its sentiments and mo- 
tives. We are all armed by nature with weapons of 
ofFense and defense ; and while the brain is engaged in 
the loftiest aspirations, the musele may alvvays find op- 
portunity for useful and healthful exercise. The frown- 



ing bastions wliicli protect our harbors, threatening 
slaugliter to all invaders, afford protection to ports in 
whicli are nurtured all the gentlest virtuos, whicli can 
adoni and embellish civilized life. The sombre portals 
of the prison-house are shut upon the guilty criminal, 
whose fierce passions have made him dangerous to a 
society, the finer nature of which is developed m the 
church and the school house, in the hospital and the 
charitable institution. For the protection of the gov- 
ernment, the person and property of every man is held 
to a hard and rigid accountability. The business of 
ruling, or of conducting the statė, knows no charity. 
The widow's mite, and the tax of the millionaire, are 
both poured into the treasury under the behest of iron 
law. But behind this frovvning presence, there should 
be the smiling face of the tenderest regard for every 
attribute of the best citizenship. The government, 
which sacrifices everything for material prosperity, can- 
not endure. The government, which neglects all the 
kindest sentiments of its people, in its struggle for su- 
premacy and power, will find in the end a maddened 
popnlace battering at its mouldering walls. But let a 
government once indicate its determination to make all 
its complex machinery subservient to that high manly 
tone, which is found in every human breast, however 
fallen it may be, to that tender sensibility which no 
frost can ever utterly destroy, to the demands of a peo- 
ple thirstmg for education, to that humanity which w']l 



10 



tolerate no form of oppression, and to that philanthropy 
which will not witness in silence the workings of crime 
and injustice — and its existence will be as enduring as 
any human striicture can be — its principles as undying 
as divine truth. 

I say this with the more confidence, because I know 
that it is the great thought of every age, which has alone 
been preserved and handed down to us, while all exter- 
nal grandeur has perished, and arches and temples, por- 
ticoes and galleries, have been buried a common ruin, 
beneath accumulating dnst-^and the power of the em- 
pire which they adorned has passed away. Of the 
migbt of the East, which shone with meridian splen- 
dor even at the dawn of any history which we now 
possess, what remains but the wisdom of Saadi and the 
Vedas X Of all the vigor and power of the Greek re- 
publics, those contending oligarchies loaded with the 
weight of Helots and slaves, what have we that is im- 
mortal save the truth and fervid thought of liomer, and 
Plato, and Demosthenes — the poets, and philosophers, 
and orators ? Turn your eyes upon the greatness and 
splendor of the Roman Empire — and the conąuests 
fili you with amazement ; the forum, and the baths, and 
the coliseum impress you with sadness ; while you gain 
strength to your soul from the philosophy of Cicero, 
and warm your heart at the geniai verse of Virgil. 
Through the darkness which cnvelops the early history 
of England, it is the great principles of government 



11 



contained in Magna Charta, and tlie doctrines announc- 
ed by Milton and the Puritans, which shine still with 
supernal lustre ; and it is a prudent and sagacious 
obedience to these principles and doctrines, whicli has 
given the English nation its vitality and permanency. 
So witli our own country. How we linger around the 
first declaratious of freedom and popular right, made 
by the bold and true-hearted all along our pathway, 
from the earliest settlement of the colonies. The forms 
and modes of government have changed and are for- 
gotten. Of what- value to us now are the terms of 
charter granted to the colonies of Plymouth and Mas- 
sachusetts Bay, the privileges be&towed upon Lord Bal- 
timore and Oglethorpe, or the grants conferred upon 
the adventurers of Virginia and the Carolmas? But 
we do remember that the fathers of New England, by 
a solemn instrument, in the words of Hutchinson, 
" formed themselves into a proper democracy." We 
do remember the glowing words of Warren — "I am 
convmced that the true spirit of liberty vvas never so 
universally diffused through all ranks and orders of 
men on the face of the earth, as it now is through all 
North America." How do your minds pass on from 
the early struggles of the Revolution, and the details of 
government in the several colonies, to those grand as- 
sertions which roused and guided the popular mind, 
and gavę us the fundamentai principles of a free com- 
monwealth. The rivahies, and strifes, and cabals are all 



12 



forgotten. Bnt not so the grand conceptions of John 
Adams, -mth regard to the future of his coimtry ; not 
so the abiding faith of Samuel Adams, in " the sove- 
reignty of the people ;" not so the thiuiders of Patrick 
Henry, calUng the people to war ; not so the fiery ap- 
peals of James Otis ; not so the delicious thought of 
Jefferson, presenting a great truth to the prayerful and 
struggling multitnde, for which they might fight, and 
upon which we have at lašt learned to administer our 
government. And do we vveary ourselves now with 
the political controversies of our confederate and early 
constitutional history, the charges of corruption by 
•vvhich Washington was aggrieved, the rivalry between 
Jefferson and Hamilton, the passage of political power 
in the nation, from Massachusetts to Virginia 1 Not at all. 
But we dwell, we especially of Essex county, upcn the 
work performed by a son of our own soil, Nathan Dane, 
for the establishment of freedom through all the great 
northwest, declaring it, as he did, to be the "high and 
binding duty of government to encourage schools, and 
advance the means of education ; on the plain reasbn 
that religion, morality and knowledge are necessary to 
good government and the happiness of mankind." We 
dwell upon the profound wisdom of Jefferson, as he 
laid down the rules which should guide his administra- 
tion — " equal and exact justice to all men," "freedom 
of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of per- 
son under the habeas corpus, and trial by juries im- 



13 



partially selected." And we dwell upon these great 
sentiments, because, wliile all else has faded, these 
alone remain. These are the lights fixed in the fir- 
mament of our political heavens, to guide us across the 
dark and stormy sea. For the control of rebeUious 
States, the fathers left us no rules ; for the conduct of 
oiir treasury in civil war, they laid down no system of 
finance ; for diplomatic dealings with foreign powers, 
while our government was threatened with disruption, 
they provided no precedent. But they did fix and con- 
firm in our history, those sentiments of humanity and 
justice, which will ahvays remain, through all the 
chance and change of revolving political years. 

We cannot be too grateful, my friends, for the spirit 

thus breathed into our nation at its very birth. This is 

its immortal part which can never die. It has survived 

all the confusion of local and temporary politics — the 

apparent necessities of the times — compromises against 

freedom, to which the perplexed and anxious fathers 

bowed their heads, half in sorrow — popular uprisings 

for peace and the constitution — and the shock of arms. 

It may have been forgotten ; but only for a moment. 

There have been hours vvhen our country seemed to be 

careering on in the proud prosperity of him, who would 

" gain the whole world and lose his own soul." But 

ahvays when the trial came, the great genius of the 

land appeared in all its majesty, to guide, inform, in- 

spire, console. Through all our long and triumphant 



14 



years of peace, it was heard in every crisis, pouring 
forth its mournful \varning at every approaching danger. 
Its seers and prophets never passed away from earth. 
And when the trials of war overtook us, and the wise 
men failed, and the trumpet gavę an uucertain sound, 
and the hearts of men forsook them for fear, and the 
mourners went about the streets, this šame spu'it of 
universal freedom and humanity triumphed over all, 
and guided our country on to a purer and loftier na- 
tionahty. Every prayer uttered in the war \vas uttered 
for this. Every drop of patriot blood poured out upon 
the battlefield, was shed for this. The broken-hearted 
mother mourning her son, found her only joy and con- 
solation in the thought, that for the grandest spirit of 
freedom he had laid down his life. The dying hero 
found sweet peace from its inspiration. Above all our 
councils he sat — this mighty angel of human liberty — 
and before his flaming sword fled all rulers and cap- 
tains, who failed to obey his august presence. There 
was no success in war but what he besto wed ; — there 
will be none in peace. 

How every stirring and tragic event in our history, 
has been sanctified by this American sentiment to which 
I have. alluded. There have been many \vars — many 
heroes. But there is but one Bunker Hill, with its yeo- 
man soldiery — but one Yorktown with its significant 
victory — but one Valley Forge, \vith its privation and 
devotion — but one Gett}^sburg, where freedom toiled 



15 



and trembled tliree long and weary days. There has 
been but one Washington — but one Grant — crowned 
■with the largest favor of the immortal gods, — success 
in a righteous cause. 

There have been many martyrs in the church and 
statė — but one Lincoln. To him above all men was 
it given so to die by the assassin's hand, as to seal with 
his blood the cause for which he lived and labored. 
Never was there a story likę his. Not learned in the 
law, nor in science, — of but few books — withotit 
large experience in public afFairs — known mostly for 
the simple and instinctive analysis, which he applied to 
the subtile logic of an artful and skilled opponent in 
debate — representing in the whole and in all its parts 
the entire conception of civil freedom — with humor 
the gentlest and most unbounded — with simplicity and 
self-possession, which broke the lance of the highest 
diplomatic skili, and the training of courts — saying of 
slavery, with a sweet spirit of kindness and considera- 
tion worthy of a wife and a mother, " it forces so many 
reaUy good men amongst ourselves into an open war 
with the very fundamentai principles of civil liberty," — 
calling on his people with a sublime and fervid elo- 
quence, " think nothing of me ; take no thought for 
the political fate of any man whatever ; but come back 
to the truths that are in the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence ; you may do anythmg with me you choose, if 
you will but heed these sacred principles. You may 



16 



not only defeat me for tlie Senate, hut you may take me 
and put me to death ; while pretending no indifFerence 
to eartlily honors, I do claim to be actuated in this con- 
test by something higher than an anxiety for ofRce ; I 
charge you to drop every paltry, insignificant thought 
for any man's success ; it is nothing ; I am nothing ; 
Judge Douglas is nothing ; but do not destroy that im- 
mortal emblem of humanity — the Declaration of In- 
dependence ;" — a man apparently of one idea, but that 
idea embracing all human right, privilege, happiness, 
all popular education, all elevation, all the design of 
free government — representing nothing more than 
that grand sentiment, to which our country was dedi- 
cated by starving colonies and bloody war — he was 
called to rule, at a time when all political skili had 
failed, and the leader mušt be clothed with the panoply 
of righteousness, " as wise as a serpent and harmless 
as a dove." In him the American sentiment of free- 
dom was embodied, and under his guidance it triumph- 
ed. For this cause he suffered insult — bore the slander 
of foes and the coldness of friends — held his mind as 
plastic as a child's — tried all experiments, conciliation 
uutil exhausted, and then ruthless war — believed in 
the honor of his antagonists, but never allowed them 
to deceive him — was a warrior, trusting in superior re- 
sources and numbers with Grant ; an orator, soaring 
beyond the accomplished eloquence of all rivals, under 
the inspkation of the sublime hour. You may search 



lt 



all history in vain for his parallel, either in his life, or 
in tlie effect and significance of his death. Men will 
hereafter turn from the stories of the assassinated greai, 
of Caesar slain for his ambition, of William of Orange 
victorious for his own people alone, of Cicero miirder- 
ed while his lašt appeal for Roman liberty was dying 
from his lips ; and they will find in the life and death 
of Abraham Lincoln alone, all that can be expressed 
for a free Republic, and all the sacrifice that man can 
make, for a true and generons sentiment of freedom 
for all. When he fell, the sullen and exasperated foes 
of human rights, having done their worst, retired, 
amazed at their own desperation. At that hour, the 
friends of freedom renewed their vows to be true to 
the sentiments of their departed leader, and to the doc- 
trines of the Declaration, in the work of restoring the 
government. 

He mušt be less than a man, less than an American, 
my friends, who could perform any public service this 
day, even expressing the smallest tribute of regard for 
our national institutions, without allusion to the work 
of reconstruction which is now going on, as a conse- 
quence of the anarchy, confusion and disruption of the 
war. I am brought to it, here in your presence, by the 
memories of the p&,st, and by that path which has led 
me, in my discourse, to the sacred grave of Abraham 
Lincoln, around \vhich cluster his wise and humane 



18 



counsels, and his large christian devotion to mankind 
and his country. We are reminded here of his high 
resolve, during all the trials and doubt of the lašt year 
of the war, the long and weary and bloody gloom of 
the Wiklerness, and during the political uncertamty 
which unnerved the brave and faithful, — his high re- 
solve to listen to no terms of peace which did not eni- 
brace " the integrity of the whole Union, and the 
abandonment of slavery'' We are reminded here of his 
determination " not to be inflexibly committed to any 
plan of restoration," until all the complications and 
difficulties of the times were fully unfolded, provided 
ahvays that in any event, free citizenship with all its 
rights and immunities should take the place of slavery. 
And we aecept the task, his lašt beąuest, prepared for 
us by all the brilliant victories which marked the close 
of his term of public service, and all the record of his 
political life. He found his country disrupted, dis- 
graced, an object of contempt, her flag trailing in the 
dust — he left it victorious, elated, jubilant, free, wait- 
insr for the hour when the Union should be restored in 
such form, accordant with the principles tauglit him by 
the fathers, that they and we might learn how '• tliey 
builded better than they knew." 

There is no time here to argue the ąuestion of re- 
construction. But I claim that the Fedcral Govern- 
ment has at lašt vindicatcd its right to self-defence, its 
supremc nationality, and its power to declare and fix 



19 



uniformly and everyAvhere withm its jurisdiction, a free 
American citizenship, untrammelled by local law, and 
unobstructed by local prejudice. I go furtlier ; and I 
maintain tliat no local legislation should be allowed to 
abridge this citizenship, in respect of the ballot box. 
The government which can make soldiers of its people, 
should also make citizens, and of citizens, voters — 
granting and establishing impartial suffrage, so su- 
preme, that no caprice of State or sėction should ever 
curtail it. I know no other foundation for State equal- 
ity in the Union than this. American citizenship will 
be a farce and a sham so long as a State dependent 
upon the general government for its very existence, shall 
arrogantly exercise the power of declaring, that no per- 
son shall be a citizen, who cannot trace his descentfrom 
some one particular branch of the human family. A 
thinkiug, reasoning man passes from the opęn courts, 
and school houses, and coUeges and churches of Mas- 
sachusetts into another State, and on account of some 
accident of birth, he finds all these institutions closed 
to him, his right to hold property gone, his right to 
equal civil privileges destroyed, the ballot box as far 
from him as it is from the exile wearing away his life 
in the lonely forests of Siberia. Should a free born 
man, claiming the flag of the Union his own, submit 
to this ? If so, what is that flag worth ? Should a 
civil organization called a State be enipowered thus to 
destroy a right, which each one of its malė inhabitants 



20 



of certain age is bound to figlit for, or our Union is a 
rope of sand ] If so, what is y our government worth 1 
And what is meant by a free republic 1 This reproach, 
incorporated into our federal organization, out of cour- 
tesy to an institution so abnormal that the government 
has been obliged to crush it or be crushed by it, should 
fall forever with the death of that institution. If we 
"vvould ever arrive at that eonsummation, so devoutly 
prayed for by every lover of good government, an ag- 
gregation of free and equal commonwealths into a re- 
public of education, freedom, good niorals and re- 
ligion — a republic of human eąuality, a republic of 
equal States, we mušt make this the fundamentai part 
of our work of reconstruction. Anything short of this 
is another compromise with ignorance, sočiai despot- 
ism, and barbarism. Are you, men of Massachusetts, 
ready for this compromise 1 Are you ready to recog- 
nize anywhere the right to disfranchise a fellow-man in 
that portion of God's heritage, in the laws and govern- 
ment of which you claim a share, and in the civil bur- 
dens and responsibilities of which you are compelled 
to take a part^ If you are, your sons and brothers 
have fought in vain. If you are, the tears of mothers, 
sisters and daughters sorrowing for the slain, have been 
shed for nouglit ; and our old men are tottering to their 
graves, mourning for sons fallen in a useless "vvar. Bet- 
ter disruption, with all its ruined hopes and promises, 
than such a shame as this. Bctter an eternal war, than 



21 



peace purchased at such a dishonorable price. Why 
should we recognize the right of a State to insult an 
American citizen ? Does our safety reąuire it ? Does 
the in'tegrity of our Union demand it? Should the 
State which asks for it, be considered one of the 
sovereigns of our Union? Let her be looked upon 
as a by-word and a hissing among the nations, rather. 
And let her learn that she o\ves something to human- 
ity, something to decency, something to the christian 
sentiment of the civilized world, something to a Union 
for which the bitterest sacrifices have been made, by 
those who believe in human elevation, and in the free- 
dom of the sons of God. Let her learn this, before 
she talks of returning to her place in the great as- 
sembly of advancing States, or of performing her part 
in our regenerate republic. 

Whatever means are reąuired to secure to the 
American citizen everywhere, the privileges of the 
church, the school house, the ballot box and jury 
box, should become a part of the machinery of re- 
construction. If for this it \vere necessary to send 
Grant back to his blazing lines, I would do it. If for 
this it were necessary to send Sherman back to At- 
lanta, I would do it. If for this it were necessary to 
call once more upon the loyal men of the North to 
man our forts, I would do it. If for this it were 
necessary to call once more upon that devoted race, 
who guided our troops through Southern swamps and 



22 



fousfht iii our ranks, and filled tbe trenches of the 
enemy, to strike again for their freedom, I would do 
it. But it is not necessary. The question now is not 
one of war. The conflict is removed from the Tbloody 
battlefield, to the stormy arena of pnblic debate, to the 
j^olls, to the people, to Congress. We sit in judgment 
npon it here. And if v/e, in this bloodless strife, will 
but exercise the šame courage and devotion, the šame 
■unwavering principle, as our soldiers manifested in the 
heat of war, the victory will be ours on this field, as it 
was theirs on tields of more renown. If we will but 
learn that the Federal arm should be still stretched 
over those States, which have not y et recognized the 
decree of freedom made by the-war, all will be well. 
If we still hesitate to invite the Senators and Repre- 
sentatives of States, even now hugging slavery and 
rebellion to thcir bosoms, all will be well. If we will 
insist upon it, that a State which allows its judges to 
sell men into slavery as a punishment for crime, and 
to bind black children to a bondage worse than slavery, 
because possessed of none of its domestic ties and in- 
terests, is not fit to participate in the work of free gov- 
ernment, all will be well. Lct us remember that, to- 
day, without the protection of the Freedman's Bureau, 
supported as it is by the military power of the govern- 
mcnt, the negro could not pursue any employment in 
safcty at the South. Thcse new-born citizens of the 
United States are hunted down in the streets, a price 



23 

set upon their heads, as if they were wolves, every 
form of ingeiuiity exercised to deprive tliem of a fair 
reward for their labor, by tliose who Avere born with. 
the bitterest contempt for their color, and who have 
been taught to detest their protector — that goveniment 
which they could not overthrow. The maddened press 
of the South clamors still for another- revolution. Un- 
ion men are driven to their hiding places, or are scorn- 
ed and insulted in their daily walk. Even the haughty 
leaders of that still untamed and unenlightened section, 
claim for their States the constitutional right of seces- 
sion ; the recent owners of emancipated slaves still 
hope for compensation ; and the holders of confed- 
erate bonds are waiting for the day, when their repre- 
sentatives in the federal Congress shall fuud these 
bonds as a part of the national dėbt. The people of 
the South have been asked by their leaders to submit 
as gracefuUy and patiently as may be, to the conse- 
ąuences of their discomfiture on the battle field. But 
nothing more. No appeal has yet been heard from 
the pulpit, there, in behalf of a christian devotion to 
that faith and church, which may now embrace all in 
its ample fold. No voice has been uttered from the 
rostrum, telling the people that they enjoy a new and 
glorious opportunity, as free citizens — an opportunity 
for elevation and even-handed prosperity. No prophet 
has yet risen up there, to teach men that a new day 
has dawned, in which the sky is not darkened. No 



24 



wise and humane counsellor has y et toki liis Soutliern 
brethren that slavery is dead — and secession crushed — 
and citizenship established — • and impartial sufFrage 
proclaimed — and that the way is now open for them 
to be enrolled among the unblemished Commonwealths. 
Not a word of all this do we hear from pulpit or press 
or rostrum ; but appeals to sectional passion and pride 
and prejudice — haughty demands for place and power 
in the government — offensive eulogy of the rebellious 
chiefs — contemptous reflections upon the intclligence 
of the north — new and more mgenious attempts to de- 
feat by political intrigue a victorious people, whom they 
could not vanąuish ių. a fair encounter of arms. And 
we are asked to bow the knee to this, and call it recon- 
struction. 

There may be those who are ready to do this — but 
I for one am not. I do not ask for revenge ; I do not 
ask for an unseemly triumph ; I do not ask for cruel 
punishment of the erring and wayward ; I do not ask 
that the vanąuished should be led at the car of the vic- 
tor. But I do ask that our government should secure 
such guarantees for its future safety, as ręst upon a 
uniform civilization, respect for its power, and an 
understanding that its mission here is to protect the 
down trodden and lowly, and develop all sočiai virtue, 
iutelligencc, and religion. I do ask that a statė once 
in rebcllion, should graccfully accept the conditions 
laid down for her return ; that she should so amend lier 



25 



constitution and enact her laws, as to conform with the 
republican theory of government ; that she should 
adopt impartial sufFrage ; that she should inaugerate a 
system of free education ; that she should open her 
courts of justice to all ; that she should submit all 
ąuestions of ameudment to her people ; that her legis- 
lation and administration of justice should be free from 
military control ; and that she should present herself at 
the doors of congress reorganized m this manner, and 
asking for admission into the Union. And until this 
time shall arrive, I would call upon the President to 
exercise in time to come, as he has in time past, that 
war power by which he has appointed provincial gov- 
ernors, and suspended courts of justice, and set aside 
elections, and suppressed a disloyal press, and prepared 
by the sword the way for the unrestrained exercise of 
all the rights of a free community. 

But, my friends, they say there are objections to this. 
The President objects ; and his objections, as far as I 
have been able to ascertain from his varįous vetoes and 
messages, are based mainly on the ground that " of 
thirty-six States which constitute the Union, eleyen are 
excluded from representation in either House of Con- 
gress," and have no voice in any amendments or enact- 
ments now proposed for the effectual business of recon- 
struction. But had these States any voice in the 
organizing of that army with swept through them with 
fire and sword, wasting their fields, defeating theirsons, 



26 



chastising tlieir folly with the flaming sword of tlie de- 
stroying angel 1 Had tliey any voice in the organization 
of that policy which sent Andrew Johnson to Tennessee 
as mihtary governor, gavę Butler and Banks the rule of 
Louisiana, established martial lavv and miUtary punish- 
ments Avithm their borders ? Had they any voice in 
that amendment to the constitution, AA'hich confirmed 
freedom on four millions of the sons of men, which . 
they held in bondage by solemn enactments on their 
statute books ? Had they any voice in that election, 
which placed Andrew Johnson where he is, iipon a 
platform which approvcd and endorsed " as demanded 
by the emergency and essential to the preservation of 
the nation, and as within the constitution, the measures 
and acts which he (the President) has adopted, to de- 
fend the nation against its open and secret foes 1 " Had 
they any voice in the appointment of provincial govern- 
ors to rule over them — the benighted Perry in South 
Carolina, and " Sharkey the Just " in Mississippi, be- 
cause in the language of the President, they had. been 
" deprived by the rebellion, of all civil government ? " 
Had they any voice in the suspension of the habeas 
corpus, in the suppression of newspapers, in the open- 
ing of their ports to commerce, in the disbanding of 
their armies, in the nuUifying of their elections, in 
those very means by which they have called together 
their legisUitures, and have gone through the formahty 
of elccting Senators and Reprcsentatives to Congress 1 



27 



Ilave tliey hacl any voice in any of those measures 
"vvhich tlie President of the United States lias adopted 
for tlieir reorganization ? None whatever. To all this 
they have been compelled to submit. But -vyben Con- 
gress comes forward witli measures of permanent re- 
construction, in accordance Avitli the spirit of the con- 
stitution, and the object of the war, and the demands 
of freedom, it is suddenly discovered that these rebel- 
lious States are entitled to all the consideration due to 
those who have remained true to the Union, and have 
saved that Union from destruction ; it is all at once 
solemnly put forth, that they alone are the judges of 
all further terms of restoration. This assumption iš 
monstrous. The President has sometimes done bis 
duty faithfully. He did it faithfully on the breaking 
out of the rebellion, during the war, and at the olose 
of the contest. But let him remember that there is a 
limit to bis power. Let him remember that Congress 
has its duty to perform — a duty involving the proper 
eondition of the rebellious States, the integrity of the 
government, and the dignity and purity of its own 
body. The President may prepare the way for civil 
organization in these States — but it is not for him by 
executive decrees, or by military control, so to direct 
the elections and legislative action of any State, as to 
send into Cono-ress the creatures of bis own will to fili 
places, which should be filled by the representatives 
of a people acting in their own sovereign capacity. 



28 



When the legislative brandi of our government sliall 
be subjected to such executive control as tliis, the first 
step \vill be taken towards an usurpation, compared 
\vith which all the deeds of a " star-chamber," pictured 
forth by the most delmous madness, are mere trifles 
and nonsense. If the President has done his duty in 
time past, let now Congress and the loyal people do 
thehs, without the usurpatory exercise of any eon- 
structive power of the executive. 

But the South objects to the plan of Congress. So 
also does it object to the plan of the President, hitherto 
pursued. It is not to be supposed that any policy can 
be particularly gratifying to those, who are obliged to 
submit in any event. The South, however, should not 
object. If there are those, in that section of our 
country, who desire their own local honor and pros- 
perity, let tliem rise to the magnitude of the occasion. 
If they desire to write their names in history, with the 
benefactors of their race, and with the inimortal states- 
men who have created new glories, from the seeming 
misfortune of their country, let them teach their folio w- 
ers the \vay to liuman elevation, through education, 
and the institutions of universal freedom. What a 
glorious reward awaits the liberal and advancing young 
mcn of the South ! The South should not object. 

But, lastly, the great eonservative Union party of the 
country, so called, objects — claiming to be the De- 
mocratic party of Jefferson, wlio dcclared that " all 



29 



men are created equal " — claiming to be tlie Demo- 
cratic party of Jackson who proclaimed tliat the Union 
mušt and should be preserved — the Democratlc party, 
the finai and fadhig Democratic party of McClellan, 
who pronounced the war for the restoration of the 
Union a " faikire," and clamored for " peace " at " the 
earliest practicable moment," when we had seized the 
wolf by the throat, and were stranghng him forever. 
This is a sad spectacle — the heirs of the glory of 
Andrew Jackson, accepting a national humiliation likę 
this. But so it is. And so now they complain that 
the exclusion of Alexander H. Stevens from the Senate 
of the United States, is the " exclnsion of loyal Sena- 
tors and Representatives," and " is unjust and revolu- 
tionary." So they insist npon it that " Slavery is 
abolished, and neither can noronght to be re-establish- 
ed in any statė or territory within our jurisdiction," and 
then throw, in this connection, the following tub to 
the irritated and lashing Southern whale : — 

" Each State has the undoubted right to prescribe 
the ąualiiications of its own electors, and no external 
power can, or ought to dictate, control or influence 
the free voluntary action of the States in the exercise of 
that right : — " 

In substance this — " Slavery is abolished it is true, 
in spite of our efforts ; no compensated emancipation, 
no more renditions, no more Dred Scott decisions ; but 
the right of a State to disfranchise a negro still re- 



30 



mains ; and a wliite man's goveniment is preserved for 
you on the foundations of statė sovereignty." Coii- 
servatism objects — and calls itself democracy. 

But, my friends, the true and loyal American De- 
mocracy does not object to any policy which will con- 
firm the government, and serve the canse of freedom. 
They who really believe in the doctrine of JefFerson — 
they who are unionists as Jackson was — they Avho 
would reap all the frnits of victory — they who would 
send all the rights of freemen into the revolted States — 
they who have faith in the schoolhonse and the meet- 
ing-house — they who hate injustice and wrong, and 
would tear it root and brandi from onr soil — they 
who were determined to fight for victory — they who 
believe in impartial sufFrage for white man and 
black — they who feel in their hearts tliat great 
national sentiment which is our immortal part — they 
believe in all the efforts made in Congress or ont of it. 
to reconstruct onr government on " eqnal and exact 
justice." 

This is the American people ; and in their name I 
appeal to our representatives, to those who hold our 
honor in their hands, to stand firm for the right, and 
for universal freedom. For the American people I 
appeal ; for those who trace their descent from that 
illustrious ancestry, whose courage and wisdom gavę 
ns a country, and all the American pride in the land 
of the fathers ; for those who, gathering here from 



SI 



every kindred, nation and tongue imder heaven, 
breathe our own free air and seek protection under 
our flag ; for those who, on this coutinent, are waiting 
patiently for the time, when the Republic sliall know 
no bounds but the surrounding shores ; when tbe waters 
of the St. Lawrence shall flow through American soil, 
and the mountains of Mexico shall look down upon the' 
last feeble and dejected despot, retreating before the 
advancmg flag of freedom. I appeal for the American 
soldier — for him, who sleeps his last sleep beneath 
the sod which he redeemed, and whose memory 
" smėlis sweet and blossoms m the dust;" — for him 
who stiU survives, and treasures for his children and 
his children's children the story of his valor and sufFer- 
ing in the great and holy cause, and whose pathway 
through life should be made smooth and cheerful by a 
restored and grateful country. For the down-trodden 
and oppressed, I appeal - that the promises made to 
them may be all sacredly performed, and that the 
history of the war may be the history of their elevation 
among the races of men. 

My friends, there is among the heraldic devices 
Tvhich have been brought to this country, preserved 
from the lineage of the old world, and upon which I 
have often pondered.as expressing all that there is of 
patriotism, of true government, of sočiai order and 



82 



elevation, of the christianity of civil life : — Uhi liher- 
tas, ihi])atri: — wliere freedom is, there is my coimtry. 
Let that motto be ours forever, that the hopes of the 
fathers of the Hepublic may all be fulfiUed. 



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